The Mind in Exile: Thomas Mann in Princeton

Corngold (Franz Kafka: The Necessity of Form), a professor of literature at Princeton University, shapes a “cultural memory” of German Nobel laureate Thomas Mann (1875–1955) during his stint at Princeton from 1938 to 1941 in this savvy appraisal. Having been stripped of his German citizenship by the Nazis in 1936 for his critiques of fascism, Mann secured a lectureship at Princeton and, driven by his “insistent moral sense,” continued to speak out. Corngold depicts Mann as he strives to balance his dueling functions as a political exile and a writer devoted to his craft, all the while trying to solve “the problem of freedom,” which he saw as the challenge of leveling individualism with social equality. Mann, Corngold writes, “declared that an authentic Germany lived on—elsewhere. It lodged in the spiritual plenty of German literature, kept alive by writers in exile—by Mann and those whom he inspired to carry on.” This, though, isn’t a hagiography, and Corngold makes no bones about Mann’s biases and antiquated arguments, namely his lack of awareness about his relative affluence and his affirmation of colonialism in the form of his “admiration of the British Empire.” While the writing can be repetitive and dense, Corngold offers a shrewd and balanced take on a much-studied figure. This sharp, focused work will impress historians and scholars of German literature. (Feb.)